Watershed - Streams

The red color streams are considered by the PA Department of Environment Protection to be "impaired". As indicated in this map, there is trout fishing in New Garden Township. Practically all the trouts are restocked from fisheries. Read Glenn Nelson's, Education Coordinator for Chester County Parks, about trout fishing in Chester County.

• TSF= Trout Stream Fisheries
• EV= Exceptional Value
• CWF= Cold Water Fisheries

All of the Creeks and Streams in New Garden Township have been declared unfit for swimming, fishing, and other uses by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A lot of progress has been made in cleaning up America's lakes, rivers, and streams since the passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act. There are no fires on rivers anymore. Fish kills are down, and the quality of sewage treatment has improved dramatically. But even with all with existing laws and regulations, about half of America's waters are still too polluted for fishing, swimming, and other uses. Compounding the problem is a lack of public awareness.

New Gardens' streams are still contaminated by sediment, sewage, disease-causing bacteria, fertilizers, manure, toxic metals, and oil and grease. Some of our stream corridors, riverbanks, and lake shores lack stabilizing vegetation and continue to erode, further degrading water quality and aquatic habitat.

Today, polluted stormwater runoff is the source of most of the contamination in the New Gardens waters. Heavy rains and melting snow pick up pollutants and transport them downhill toward the nearest body of water or leach through the soil, carrying pollutants toward groundwater supplies.